Long before she contracted COVID-19 at a Kirkland, Washington, nursing home, Barbara Dreyfuss made sure to document the wishes that would govern how she died.
The medical directive she signed last year at the Life Care Center outside Seattle called for no resuscitation if her heart stopped, no machine to help her breathe. The 75-year-old, who suffered from lung disease and heart problems, had been on a ventilator for two weeks in 2016, a grueling experience she didn’t want to repeat.
“Mom’s form said, ‘Do not resuscitate, allow natural death,’” said son Doug Briggs, 54. “That was her choice.”
So after Dreyfuss fell ill in late February, becoming one of the first U.S. patients sickened by the new coronavirus sweeping the globe, her family reluctantly allowed doctors to halt lifesaving treatment in favor of comfort care.
Dreyfuss, a once-vivacious feminist and activist, died March 1, two days before tests formally confirmed she had COVID-19. But her decision to confirm her wishes in advance could serve as an example for growing numbers of individuals and families feeling new urgency to pin down end-of-life preferences